February 3, 2026
Baby bangs vs bad gas
Preserved hair reveals just how bad lead exposure was in the 20th century
Grandma’s hair says we were bathing in lead — cue the EPA wars
TLDR: A Utah study found hair samples show lead exposure dropped about 100x after environmental rules began. Commenters battled over whether the EPA or smelter closures deserve the credit, debated hair vs blood reliability, and clashed on deregulation fears—turning science into a policy food fight.
Preserved baby hair just dropped a bomb: folks in 20th-century Utah had about 100x more lead in their hair than people today, and commenters went full popcorn mode. First on the scene was the dupe police, with “you just can’t resist, can you” and a link to the other thread. Then the brawl began. Pro-regulation voices cheered the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) as the unlikely hero—“Thanks, Nixon?” memes everywhere—crediting cleaner air and shutting down smelters for the dramatic drop. Skeptics pushed back: hair isn’t blood, the sample’s just 47 people, and it’s Utah-only, so cool it with the global victory laps.
Things got spicy when the article warned current deregulation could undo progress; instantly, the thread split into “don’t bring back leaded vibes” versus “correlation isn’t causation—smelters did the heavy lifting.” Jokes flew: “Scientists raiding grandma’s scrapbooks,” “We were literally seasoning the air with lead,” and “Baby’s first highlights: toxic edition.” The stat that lead fell two orders of magnitude after the EPA’s creation was the headline-maker, but the crowd couldn’t agree on what deserves the credit—or what happens next if rules get rolled back. Drama, memes, and a tiny lock of baby hair stole the show.
Key Points
- •Hair samples from 47 individuals in the Greater Salt Lake City region show lead exposure was about 100 times higher before EPA-era regulations.
- •Leaded gasoline, via tetraethyl lead introduced in the 1920s, was a major source of 20th-century lead exposure; a full U.S. ban occurred in 1996.
- •Lead levels in hair were extremely high from 1916 to 1969 and declined by two orders of magnitude between the 1970s and 1990s.
- •EPA establishment in 1970 and closure of local lead smelters are linked to immediate declines in environmental lead exposure.
- •Hair lead reflects environmental exposure but does not directly correspond to blood lead, the clinical standard for toxicity assessment.